Short in the article refers to gay people as “sodomites,,” attacks “the perverted lifestyles homosexuals pursue,” and warns students should not “glorify homosexuals’ repugnant practices of frequent anal intercourse nor should we consider them brave for coming out of the closet.”

If the name Marc Short is familiar, it should be. He is a former Trump administration senior official who served as the White House Director of Legislative Affairs until mid-July of last year. He begins as Vice President Pence’s Chief of Staff next week.

Referring to efforts to educate the public that HIV and AIDS do not only affect gay people, Short attacked them as a “propaganda campaign,” a “distortion campaign,” and “intentional deception.”

“The campaign’s purpose is both to lobby Congress for more federal funding of AIDS research and to destigmatize the perverted lifestyles homosexuals pursue,” Short wrote.

Short’s uneducated opinion also led him to refer to an “HIV-infected alumnus” who said, “AIDS is not caused by drug use or homosexual sex, it is simply a virus…passed by these and other activities.”

Claiming “we feel sympathy” for the alumnus “and all AIDS victims,” Short opined, “that does not mean that we glorify homosexuals’ repugnant practices of frequent anal intercourse nor should we consider them brave for coming out of the closet.”

Short also quotes the author of “The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS” to suggest heterosexual people are less susceptible to HIV/AIDS, regardless of if they have intercourse with HIV-positive partners, which is false. He also called gay people “dishonest,” and claimed “homosexuals are eager to be defined as heterosexual.”

Not only did Short attack LGBT people, he placed the words HIV epidemic in scare quotes. Short also referred to people living with HIV as “a homosexual AIDS carrier,” and accused them of taxpayer “fraud” and of taking funds away from “victims of other diseases.”

Short, according to The Daily Beast, has apologized for his words.

“I regret using language as an undergraduate college student that was not reflective of the respect I try to show others today,” Short said in a statement to The Daily Beast. “We have all learned a lot about AIDS over the past 30 years and my heart goes out to all the victims of this terrible disease.”

Short’s apology does not fully address his feelings about LGBTQ people.

And his apology is not good enough for Peter Staley, a long-term AIDS and gay rights activist.

“I wrote stuff in college too. And I don’t look back and say, ‘Oh, sorry, it was my college years.’ You’re either on the right side of stuff or the wrong side.” Staley told The Daily Beast. “He was taking classic Jesse Helms-style rhetoric from the late ’80s and putting an early ’90s spin on it and sounding like the fools they all were… Guys like him wanted us to die. And they had an effect.”

Pence’s new hire is likely to yet again place the spotlight on his own anti-LGBT positions and actions. You can read more about Pence’s attacks on LGBT people in our archives, here.

Short’s essay appears on page 11 here. It should be required reading for anyone working to oust the Trump administration.

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Franklin Graham Promotes Anti-Gay Chick-fil-A and Attacks College Group as ‘The Ones Fostering Hate and Bigotry’

Franklin Graham has turned his Facebook-based ministry into one that frequently attacks the LGBTQ community, and Wednesday proved to be no different. The Evangelical leader with strong ties to President Donald Trump took to Facebook to promote Chick-fil-A, the $10 billion privately-owned faith-based fast food restaurant chain. And he blasted a college faculty group trying to keep the divisive restaurant from their campus.

“Guess where I ate lunch yesterday? Yes, at Chick-fil-A,” Graham bragged on Facebook. “They are always packed for a reason. Their restaurants are clean, and not only do they have a great chicken sandwich, but they have one of my favorite iced teas!”

Graham went on to claim that “at Kansas University, some progressive staff and administrators—are accusing Chick-fil-A of being a ‘bastion of bigotry’ and they don’t want them on campus. The Sexuality & Gender Diversity Faculty and Staff Council says Chick-fil-A ‘fosters hate and discrimination on multiple levels.’ That’s just simply not true.”

“This council and group of faculty are the ones fostering hate and bigotry, not Chick-fil-A!” Graham insisted, twisting the truth.

“All of this is because the founder Truett Cathy and his son Dan Cathy stood for traditional marriage and the business has donated to support some Christian charities,” Graham said.

Again, not true.

The Cathy family didn’t just stand for “traditional marriage.” They made offensive remarks about same-sex marriage, and again, they didn’t just donate to “some Christian charities.” They donated those millions of dollars to some very actively anti-gay organizations.

Dan Cathy, now the chairman, president, and CEO of Chick-fil-A, has attacked marriage equality, saying, if you support same-sex marriage, you “are inviting God’s judgment on our nation,” and that we “shake our fist at Him” when we do.

That’s not just standing up for Christian beliefs.

Cathy also said same-sex marriage is the result of a “deprived” mind and called it “twisted up kind of stuff.”

Trump Administration Urges US Supreme Court to Declare Firing a Worker for Being Gay Is Legal

The Trump administration has just urged the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that firing an employee simply because they are gay is perfectly legal. The request comes in the form of a 34-page amicus brief, which was not required, but voluntary.

The brief, signed by Trump Solicitor General Noel Francisco, tells the Court it is the opinion of the administration’s Dept. of Justice that a “plain text” reading of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not protect gay people in the workplace from discrimination, including firing for being gay, as The Washington Blade, which was first to report, notes.

“The question here is not whether Title VII should forbid employment discrimination because of sexual orientation, but whether it already does,” the brief says. “The statute’s plain text makes clear that it does not; discrimination because of ‘sex’ forbids treating members of one sex worse than similarly situated members of the other — and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, standing alone, does not result in such treatment.”

President Trump has also stated he will not sign the Equality Act, which would specify that the Civil Rights of Act of 1964 does protect LGBTQ people from discrimination.

The Supreme Court will hear three cases related to anti-LGBTQ discrimination on October 8.

The move is consistent with the entirety of the Trump administration’s policies and actions.

Baptists Unanimously Vote Out Lesbian Couple Over Same-Sex Marriage: ‘It Was More Out of Spite’

A lesbian couple from Mississippi says they were asked to leave their Baptist church over their relationship.

Mary Catherine Trollinger and her partner Olivia Jennings were notified by letter that they were no longer welcome at Gracewood Baptist Church in Southaven, where they met last year, reported WATN-TV.

Their pastor, Barry Baker, signed the letter, which stated he had warned them against pursuing an “unbiblical” and “degrading” same-sex relationship, and told the couple they had been unanimously — and “sadly” — voted out during a special business meeting at the church.

“I told you that the church could not allow you to live in unrepentant disobedience without addressing it,” Baker wrote. “We love you too much to neglect you.”

“Not only did my mom say you can’t live here,” Trollinger said, “but my church said you can’t go here and it was in the same day, so I was pretty heartbroken was in a deep depression for a few months there.”

The couple met at Gracewood while Trollinger was serving as college director there, and they were asked to leave the church months ago, which they did, before they were officially voted out as members.

“It’s one thing if you send out a letter that’s generic, just a template, but it’s another thing to personalize the letter,” Trollinger said. “In that sense, all the things that were said it wasn’t out of love, it was more out of spite.”

The church declined to comment on the letter or the couple’s membership.